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About The nugget. (Sisters, Or.) 1994-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 13, 2021)
2 Wednesday, January 13, 2021 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon O P I N I O N A loaded gun By Jim Cornelius Editor in Chief Letters to the Editor… The Nugget welcomes contributions from its readers, which must include the writer9s name, address and phone number. Letters to the Editor is an open forum for the community and contains unsolicited opinions not necessarily shared by the Editor. The Nugget reserves the right to edit, omit, respond or ask for a response to letters submitted to the Editor. Letters should be no longer than 300 words. Unpublished items are not acknowledged or returned. The deadline for all letters is 10 a.m. Monday. To the Editor: I write in response to Mr. Damerell9s Letter to the Editor of January 6. Instead of referring to the homeless as vagrants and criminals, how about stepping up and lending a helping hand to the less for- tunate? I do, and have been greatly rewarded in peace of mind and spirit, not to mention friendship. Doug Williams s s s learn that after a visit to our St. Charles Clinic here in Sisters, vaccinations for seniors are projected to be available late spring, early summer! This is not okay! Lon Kellstrom s s s To the Editor: I think our new Congressional representa- tive Cliff Bentz should resign. He9s clearly not qualified to be a U.S. Congressman. He had a simple, perfunctory To the Editor: I was disturbed, though not surprised, to See LETTERS on page 16 Sisters Weather Forecast Courtesy of the National Weather Service, Pendleton, Oregon Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Partly Cloudy Partly Cloudy AM Showers Cloudy 46/30 50/34 49/32 48/34 Sunday Monday Tuesday Partly Cloudy Partly Cloudy PM Showers 51/33 52/36 53/34 The Nugget Newspaper, LLC Website: www.nuggetnews.com 442 E. Main Ave., P.O. Box 698, Sisters, Oregon 97759 Tel: 541-549-9941 | Email: editor@nuggetnews.com Postmaster: Send address changes to The Nugget Newspaper, P.O. Box 698, Sisters, OR 97759. Third Class Postage Paid at Sisters, Oregon. Editor in Chief: Jim Cornelius Production Manager: Leith Easterling Creative Director: Jess Draper Community Marketing Partner: Vicki Curlett Classifieds & Circulation: Lisa May Owner: J. Louis Mullen The Nugget is mailed to residents within the Sisters School District; subscriptions are available outside delivery area. Third-class postage: one year, $55; six months (or less), $30. First-class postage: one year, $95; six months, $65. Published Weekly. ©2021 The Nugget Newspaper, LLC. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is pro- hibited. All advertising which appears in The Nugget is the property of The Nugget and may not be used without explicit permission. The Nugget Newspaper, LLC. assumes no liability or responsibility for information contained in advertisements, articles, stories, lists, calendar etc. within this publication. All submissions to The Nugget Newspaper will be treated as unconditionally assigned for publication and copyrighting purposes and subject to The Nugget Newspaper9s unrestricted right to edit and comment editorially, that all rights are currently available, and that the material in no way infringes upon the rights of any person. The publisher assumes no responsibility for return or safety of artwork, photos, or manuscripts. It is a cardinal rule of firearms safety: Never point a gun at anything you do not wish to destroy. Once you pull the trigger 4 by acci- dent or with intent 4 you can never call the bullet back. For far too long, politi- cians, pundits, and public have been brandishing wea- ponized rhetoric of insurrec- tion, revolution, and civil war. On January 6 in our nation9s capital, a trigger was tripped. The shot will echo through American pol- itics for a long time to come. The people who stormed into the U.S. Capitol on that dark day chose to be there. They are responsible for their actions. Five people are dead and others will pay consequences for the day9s passions that will dog their lives for years. Wi l l t h e r e b e a n y accountability for those who whipped up the passions of the mob? Suddenly, the effort to use the counting of elec- toral votes to overturn the results of the 2020 presiden- tial election was no longer exhilarating political the- ater, no longer a salve to the wounded pride of a defeated president, or a means of har- nessing the grievances of an outraged base in pursuit of power. Suddenly, things got very real. Representative Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) hit his fellow congressmen 4 among them Oregon9s Cliff Bentz 4 with some hard truth in the wake of the January 6 riot. <They9ve been lying to people, lying to millions,= he said. <They9ve been lying that January 6 was going to be this big solu- tion for election integrity, and it was never going to be. It was never going to solve anything and it was always unconstitutional... In the sense that they were led to believe January 6 was anything but a political per- formance for a few oppor- tunistic politicians to give a five-minute speech. That is all that it ever was. People were lied to.= Crenshaw, a former Navy SEAL and combat veteran, knows what it means when things get real, and he called out those who brandished warlike words and left oth- ers to reap what they sowed. When the mob breached the Capitol, Crenshaw said, the <same members of Congress who called people to fight, they were nowhere to be found. Because it was all fun and games to them& They never knew what a real fight was. Real fights are scary. Bullets flying, that9s scary. Glass break- ing, that9s really scary. They were nowhere to be found, they scattered. They talked about the courage to stand up, the courage to fight for weeks and weeks but when it came down to it, there was no courage& All of the members who called for everyone to come and fight and make their last stand, all of those members were scat- tered like cowards while the Capitol Police had to do the fighting.= One of those police offi- cers, Brian D. Sicknick, died after rioters blud- geoned him in the head with a fire extinguisher. Words matter. The stories we tell and the narratives we craft matter. Donald Trump and his supporters can argue that he did not incite the crowd to violence in his speech at the January 6 <Save America Rally= that preceded the riot at the Capitol. After all, he did urge the crowd to <peace- fully protest.= But he also told them, <we fight, we fight like hell, and if you don9t fight like hell you9re not going to have a country anymore.= Some of those who heeded the call of the president to <walk down Pennsylvania Avenue= and <take back our country= died for their loy- alty. In the charged atmo- sphere of the day, the poten- tial for a violent outcome shouldn9t have been hard to foresee. The unprecedented breach of the Capitol comes on the heels of a summer of rioting and destruction in many American cities 4 also enabled and promoted by people who should know better. Americans who don9t relish watching their country spiral into a cycle of low-intensity civil war may be forgiven for feeling a sense of foreboding and despair. And yet& This Wednesday, here in our own community, three new city councilors are to be sworn in. These councilors will join a cadre of volun- teers of unprecedented num- bers and capability in a non- partisan effort to take on the challenges that Sisters faces, managing growth and promoting economic pros- perity, while preserving the quality of life and the com- munity bonds that make Sisters a true home. Citizens engaged in a constructive dialogue doing their civic duty, in good faith, in spite of it all. America.
